


Many Happy Returns

by Spylace



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), DCU, Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gotham never knew what hit her, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, drugged to your gills, he regrets everything, league of shadows, neither did John, not MMORPG, why you shouldn't troll the interwebs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The League of Shadows does recruiting through craigslist, who knew?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Happy Returns

**Author's Note:**

> Repost!
> 
> A fill for a [prompt](http://tdkr-kink.livejournal.com/1025.html?thread=430081#t430081) which asked for John interacting with Bane's men.

 

{0}

John Blake joined the League of Shadows after a failed summer internship in a sting operation where he flirted with the obvious pedophiles and turned down offers from some sleazy but regrettably hot men. Considering that he’d become a cop to avoid prostitution, he was less than impressed when presented with mesh shirt and leather which stunk like a dead cow in Gotham’s heat wave.

Tragically, he was still the most popular flavor on the corner of the sixth and Kane, landing in an extended stay at the hospital when he ended up soliciting a complete psycho whom his partner were too slow to stop. Faced with a mountain of bills to recompense, he hit Craigslist, desperate to cobble together something before the next bill was due.

To be fair, when he signed up to be a guide for something called the League of Shadows, he was doped up on some serious narcotics and thought that it was an MMORPG of some kind. And seriously? Craigslist?

As it turned out, the League of Shadows wasn’t a MMORPG.

Men dropped in from the ceiling half past midnight, arms bulging and MGP-84 strapped to their chests. Blake eeped and hid beneath the covers, hoping that this was yet another one of his drug-induced delusions. He was just about to be ravished by Batman when someone stepped forward, dispelling the illusion of the cape and cowl.

Ripping the sheet off his head in what he thought was a very rude move, the man asked “John Blake?” and stared at him brazenly as he stuttered out an affirmative. He wondered if the hospital was so strapped for cash these days that they had to film military-themed gangbang porno with their crippled patients. Not that he was but he really couldn’t sit up without wanting to curl up crying uncle so he didn’t think he was up for anything other than a quiet night in a closet with a six-pack and the magical pills that made the walls beat like a soothing pulse.

Frantic and not at all sure that what he was seeing was real, Blake reached out for the call button when a woman strolled in _sensibly_ through the doorway, peeling off her gloves with a rubbery snap and taking his hand into her own.

“John Blake?” She purred, inquisitive as a cat as she leaned down. “We were told you are in need of a job.”

“Oh God, I swear I thought you guys were a bunch of game designers.”

The woman hummed in amusement, her laughter soothing and beautiful in a way the men flexing their muscles like they were looking for a reason to break his face in were not.

“Have no fear,” she breathed. “We will not hurt you.”

Blake pointed out that she might have been more convincing had she not a regiment of angry men at her back, ready to tear him apart at the smallest provocations. And Blake was so tired, hadn’t he been through enough already? He would be stuck behind a desk once he was discharged from the hospital. His pay would suffer and he’d probably end up moonlighting as a pole dancer just to keep the city of Gotham from suing his bones.

The woman, who had yet to introduce herself, upped the dose of morphine which he never did well with but tolerated because he didn’t want additional charges to his stay and tucked his hair, mussed and curling around his face in adorable ringlets that his marks had really, really liked, saying “Do you want revenge?”

She read his chart aloud in a gross breach of privacy, clucking her tongue at every itinerary while her men stood by, silent as the grave, and he started to think that maybe this was a really whacked out game when the woman spoke of razing Gotham to the ground, cauterizing the wound at the site so the body could heal. There was a glint of fanaticism, an inborn sense of brokenness, that he couldn’t help but relate to, lying helpless in a bed he wouldn’t have given two pennies for had he been alright. The uncomfortable crick in his neck faded with each press of the button and his breath swirled around his mouth looking like the stars and sugar glitter as she asked, “Are you with us?”

The alternative was death.

He agreed.

{1}

Blake and Bane’s merry men quickly struck up a working relationship. Sometimes it meant spying on GCPD for Intel, other times, he planted evidence and sabotaged anyone who’s wondering why the criminals of Gotham are dropping off the map one by one. Then there were the more practical aspects of his job. For all intents and purposes, the vast majority of Talia’s army was made up of hardened assassins from Ra’s Al Ghul’s reign. Their idea of fun was pushing each other off a snowy cliff and whoever didn’t fall screaming into the icy chasm was declared the winner. It was all rather democratic to be honest.

In order for their plan to succeed, clearly something needed to be done. The men needed to be integrated into the society, not round up because stood in front of the playground too long, fascinated at the population of little people playing on the swings. Talia may have had Bane and the others wrapped around her pretty fingers but Blake was not fooled and saw her for what she really was, a conniving snake.

“You couldn’t have called? Do you not have a telephone?”

“But you will take care of them for me won’t you?” Talia chirped.

“I hate you so goddamn much.” Blake swore at her.

Sometimes Blake felt less like a hired revolutionary and more like a struggling parent of a twenty-year marriage, Bane starring as the doting father and Talia their spoiled brat of a daughter who wanted a pink and frilly princess-themed birthday party where nothing was allowed to go wrong.

When the knocks came, he opened the door and groaned “You’re kidding me.”

Bane pushed past him easily as though he owned the place while Barsad and the others gave him looks of identical consternation, like a box of misbegotten puppies free to a good home. Why Talia had felt the need to send them all to him he didn’t know. He was in parts, flattered by her trust, and highly suspicious that she was using this time as a paid vacation.

“She said you are to feed us and provide shelter.” Barsad informed him sullenly, handing him a note.

Closing his eyes, Blake counted backwards from ten. When he opened them, his reality was a dozen men camped out in his living room, covering the windows with a garbage bag and making sure to have a good vantage point should anyone burst in on them. They were effective, he had to admit, and they rationed the contents of his fridge as though preparing for a siege.

They needed a home, just not his as it soon became evident at night when they were preparing to bunker down and sleep. But he couldn’t exactly kick them out. Talia did pay for his hospital bills and coerced the doctors into giving him something else for the pain when she learned that morphine made him nauseous. In the daylight, Talia turned out to be Miranda Tate, an environmentalist and a board member of Wayne Enterprises. Scarily efficient with paperwork, she had cowed the staff in to listing her as the emergency contact.

“Is your service worth so little to them?” Bane asked, plucking at the fraying edge of the couch.

“Then find someplace else. Look at Mufasa, he’s sleeping in the tub for Christ’s sake.”

“Mostafa” The young man muttered, looking chagrined.

“He will live.” Bane said coolly, speaking like a true person who knew he had a warm bed for the night—his bed.

At this sudden epiphany, Blake began to back away into the small bedroom, blocking the doorway with his arms. “Oh no you don’t, you came here, took my couch, my closet and the living room, you are not getting my bed.”

“We may share.” Bane suggested. “I do not mind.”

Blake gaped at him.

The bed in question was a queen with a foam padding he splurged on back when he first got the job as police. Not only would it not fit two men, it wouldn’t even fit Bane by himself who was massive now that he thought about it seeing him close up. Bane shrugged as though he did not care, his bed a God-given right to his stay.

Information trickled behind his eyes as he thought of an appropriate base of operations. Somewhere secluded, where no one would stumble upon them by accident, also, he thought narrowing his eyes as Bane laid down across his bed, nowhere too comfortable.

Someone tapped his shoulder.

“Well mamá,” Roch started innocently, one of the few fluent enough to be an ass about it. “Since daddy has the bed, where are we supposed to sleep?”

{2}

Blake made a face at the smorgasbord of MREs on his table handed out like report cards at the end of the year.

He had come home from work, more tired than he had ever been in living memory. Almost a week since Talia dumped her men on him and she showed no indication of taking them back as they set up camp in his cramped apartment. Bane and another named Qusay had gone out earlier to bully the Gotham underground into giving them territory and entrance into the sewers. Blake held a sad little carton of milk in one hand, starving off the wave of panic with a breathing technique reserved for pregnant women.

Pleading to the deities for a speedy delivery, he asked carefully “What’s going on?”

If anything, the men tensed further until he was sure that they had collectively sprained something vital.

Barsad, who was left in charge of the men when Bane left, answered tersely “It’s time to eat.”

“Unless you want to cook.” Roch drawled lazily.

Blake stared at the innovative labels such as ‘Country Captain Chicken’ and ‘Tuna in Pouch’.

“You can’t be serious.”

“There is nothing left in the fridge. You have not left us with a reliable method of procuring sustenance.”

“So you’re eating MREs?”

“It’s not bad.” Mostafa offered shyly, shoveling scoops of unidentifiable mush in his mouth.

Blake picked up the phone. “Gentlemen, we live in one of the richest cities in all of Eastern seaboard.” He held up a hand, “Yes I know you hate it, but it means that we don’t have to eat like we’re already down in the sewers.”

Barsad discreetly wiped the smear of white from his mouth. “Tell me Mr. Blake. What would you recommend?”

Blake answered succinctly “Food”.  
  
  
It was a culture shock without the culture and the shock, discounting whatever havoc the take out was playing on their tongues and on Mostafa if he didn’t stop hogging the carton of Chow Mein. Even Barsad seemed impressed though he examined every article with a critical eye, frowning at the grease dripping off the browned noodles and raising an eyebrow at the artificially pink shrimp hidden in the rice.

Biting down on a dumpling with a satisfied grunt, Blake asked, “What do you think?”

“It is acceptable.” Barsad admitted, relaxed now that he was being fed. “What’s in the other boxes?”

Blake grinned impishly, “Oh you’ll like those.”  
  
  
Bane stared critically at the men laid out in the living room as though a bomb had gone off in the middle. Ever loyal, Barsad attempted to stand and let out an embarrassing hiccup which made his eyebrow rise and the other man grow pink. Bane pinned Blake with an inscrutable look, both exasperated and bewildered as he said, “And how will I purge Gotham of its corruption and greed with my men like this?”

“Hit the fast food franchises first.” Blake intoned solemnly. “That’ll bring any city to its knees.”

Barsad and the others spent the rest of the night sleeping off a food coma and had pancakes for breakfast.

Bane looked vaguely jealous.

{3}

“Is there something I should know about?” Blake asked warily as men piled into his apartment, excited like small children.

“Only that Bane is allergic to flowers and we are safe under your tender care.” Roch announced, opening his arms wide as though waiting for a hug and spinning away at the last second.

Blake gave him a sour look. “I have neighbors wondering why there are so many men visiting my doorstep. I have Mr. Evans wondering how much I charge for ‘wet work’. You have no idea how hard I want to punch you all in your faces right now.”

“Your life is a trial.” The other man cooed and Blake’s fingers turned white in a stark relief against the door frame. Luckily, Barsad was there to smooth everything over in case he decided to commit mass homicide (unlikely) or tip off to the police that they now housed a league of very dangerous people in their sewers (more likely). “Aw come on.” Roch whined as the others were let in. “It’s all a bunch of sugary crap that’ll ruin your figure—owshitfuck.”

“When did my apartment become a den of iniquity for refugee children?” Blake asked philosophically, cradling the box of doughnuts close to his chest.

“No idea,” Roch muttered, rubbing his forehead. “But it feels great being out and about.”

“Roch” Barsad said sternly for all that he was at the apartment as well and brought him doughnuts.

“Hey, I’m dedicated to the cause as much as the next person, but if I’m going to die, I want to live my life to the fullest.” He then promptly snagged a doughnut from Mostafa.

“In my apartment.” Blake said in disbelief.

“I said fulfilling, not exciting.” Roch answered through a spray of confectionary sugar. Blake grimaced in distaste as it scattered all over the counter.

“You said fullest.” Mostafa quipped, licking experimentally at a layer of chocolate.

“Hush child, the adults are talking.”

“Tell me Mr. Blake,” Qusay drawled, “How do Americans discipline their men?”

“Spankings?” Roch suggested hopefully. Everyone glared at him in full.

Blake pointed out. “You might have noticed we usually throw them in prison.”

“Fascists” Roch mumbled into his glass of milk.

He shrugged. “It’s how the rules work around here.”

“Rules of the society.” Roch protested.

“John Blake, do you still believe that Gotham can be saved?” Barsad asked quietly.

Immediately, his eyes went flat. “I don’t give a shit about Gotham, it’s the people. They deserve to be saved.”

Mostafa snuck furtive looks at the older men while Barsad graced him with a speculative glance. “You would do well to keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Why, you guys going to kill me?”

“No” Parviz answered gently, “We simply do not wish to see you hurt.”

{4}

There came a time when the glasses of milk were exchanged for bottles of beer, when their stores of philosophy and regrettable life experiences emptied (Qusay had always wanted to be a vegetarian) and Roch goaded them into spilling their guts about their worst fears. Barsad kept silent on the matter as did Parviz. Roch had gone conveniently deaf.

“You’re serious.” Blake asked wide-eyed and curious. “Your greatest fear is baboons.”

“You have not experienced horror,” Mostafa muttered, “until you have been treed by a gang of baboons.”

“I think they’re called a troop.” Blake corrected absentmindedly. “And couldn’t they climb? Since they’re monkeys?”

“Exactly!” Mostafa exclaimed, waving his around his bottle wildly until it looked as though he was about to brain himself with it. “They can climb but they did not! They waited at the base of the tree, chewing its roots, even though they could have easily pulled me off. Waiting for me to tire and to come down of my own will.” The younger man let out a strangled sob and Blake slowly edged away, not wanting to alarm him further.

Sadly breaking his incredibly short vow of silence, Roch squinted at the two of them, Mostafa who was all but rocking back and forth and Blake who wondered for the umpteenth time why anyone had given him access to wifi during his stay at the hospital.

“Is he telling you the story about baboons?” He inquired mildly.

“Yes?”

“Don’t believe him, there was only one baboon and he was perfectly safe.”

“There was more than one!”

Roch scoffed. “Alright, alright, two if you count the baby. So it was more like one and a half...”

“What about you Blake?” Qusay asked, sashaying towards the fridge and his store of alcohol. His grin was like a jagged stripe across the bottom half of his face. “What is your greatest fear?”

He answered promptly, “Clowns”

“Clowns” Barsad repeated, frowning.

“I do not understand, what are clowns?” Mostafa asked when it appeared that no one else was going to ask.

“Clowns are the most evil creatures to be placed on God’s Green Earth.” Roch answered with a straight face.

“I see.” Said Mostafa. “How did you acquire this fear?”

“Well most people go to the carnival, have fun, play games, and run screaming from the first clown that they see. For me, it was the Joker.”

“Joker” Parviz muttered stroking his chin. “His name is familiar to me.”

“Should be,” Blake said after a swallow. “He only held Gotham under siege for weeks.”

“Only?” Roch raised an eyebrow playfully.

“Trust me, that was enough.”

They fell into a brooding silence that would have set off multiple alarms in his head at any other time but he sank further into his sofa, pointing at his recently liberated windows. “Once upon a time, Batman came to the city in order to save it from itself. He cleaned up the streets, fought crime, gave others the hope to stand up for themselves and what was right. Appeals got overturned just as much as before, the rich are always getting away with murder, but enough of them stuck. It made a difference. Crime lords like Gambol and Sal Maroni were driven underground. But then the Joker came around. The Joker was... different.” He paused, his eyes half-mast as he remembered terror on the streets. They had invoked the Joker’s name like the man was Voldemort and was afraid to go out even during the day. He swallowed, careful to look away. “He wanted Gotham to burn.”

Qusay let out a slow hiss and he continued hurriedly, “My dad had just died and I was in the hospital. I was on the bus that he took hostage.” Words came out in a torrent, things that he’d never told his doctors, the police or his foster parents, things he thought were left long buried in his memories. “They dressed us up in these... masks so no one could tell who we were. We stood there for hours until the police finally found us with guns taped to our hands. We would have died.” He finished blandly.

“What saved you?”

“Batman” Blake grinned and drank his beer, wishing for something stronger. “Clowns are fucking scary.”

“Amen brother.” Roch said in a quiet approval, raising his bottle for a toast.

“Agreed” Barsad conceded with a thoughtful look.

Mostafa fell asleep.

{5}

At this point, he figured they hung around because they liked him.

Blake couldn’t help but stare at the scar extending from one ear to the other, almost as though someone had tried to cut Parviz’s head off and left a marker instead for future generations.

“Problem?” The older man rumbled from where he was restacking the dominos into a spiraling maze. Blake waved a hand.

“Sorry, I just couldn’t help but notice.”

“Ah yes” Parviz said proudly, rubbing his throat. “I received this during my initiation. I was quite... young back then. I am grateful that my lord saw it fit to spare my life.”

“Oh”

“Hey Blake” Roch called, Mostafa in a headlock under one meaty arm. “You’ll never guess how this young impressionable mind received his scars.”

“Let me go Roch!”

Mostafa had a distinct pattern around his face and neck that Blake had been hesitant to mention. In case it was something traumatic. To him that is. But once prompted, he suggested the most outrageous scenarios that he could possibly think of. “A Segway accident? An attack squirrel? A murderous food taster?”

Qusay guffawed in the background, bellyfuls of laughter that bounced off the walls as he picked up some of the mess from the night before. He flattened the pizza boxes beneath his massive hands, setting them aside for recycling as he leaned over the counter with a sneer. “You’ve been watching too many of your Hollywood movies my friend.”

Gleeful, Roch presented him with Mostafa’s face.

“This, the young padawan did to himself.”

“I did no such thing!” Mostafa aimed a kick to Roch’s knee which the man avoided skillfully, dragging him around to ‘pound some manners into his head’.

“Why?” Blake asked, fascinated in spite of himself, barely succeeding in smothering his smile. “And don’t let him puke on my bed!”

“He thought it make him look dangerous!” Roch hollered back.

He turned towards Qusay in disbelief.

“Rakish” The man responded, wiggling his eyebrows.

“What is going on?”

Barsad came in along with several others, holding a bag of groceries filled with nothing but fruits and vegetables which Roch promptly turned his nose up at, preferring days-old Thai takeout that was still in the fridge. Parviz blocked him and warned him pleasantly with a knife’s gleam in his eye that he would not be responsible for what would happen if Roch ended up bedridden with food poisoning.

“It only happened once!”

“We were talking about scars.” Qusay explained, scratching his ear delicately.

Barsad pointed at him with more emotion than he’d ever seen the lanky man show.

“Do not...”

But Roch had already relieved himself of his shirt, flexing his abdominal muscles where a jagged gash struck through the middle, cutting off his belly button and replacing it with a small depression before plowing its way up his chest and across his ribs. He traced the scar blissfully, the pads of his fingers ghosting across red starbursts. “I” he said proudly, even as his audience stared at him with skepticism, exasperation, and dulled horror. “Got this back in Zimbabwe when someone got pissed for the way I was looking at him.”

“Well your face is pretty offensive.” Blake agreed blandly, eyes stuck on the disaster that was Roch’s stomach. Roch pouted.

Qusay snorted, grinning easy now that he hadn’t run for the hills screaming or something. It was kind of nice. Having others look out for him. Now that he was riding a desk, people seemed less inclined to notice that he was there. Even his partner acted awkward around him, deflecting his questions with awkward sound bites like ‘it’s kept hush-hush’, ‘classified’ and his personal favorite ‘it has nothing to do with you’. God he hated work sometimes.

“And you my friend, have you any scars to show us?”

“Only if you want to hear embarrassing stories about how I fell off everything.” Blake admitted ruefully.

“You seem so graceful though.” Roch said in awe.

“Believe me, I was a clumsy kid. Although…” Blake undid his belt and shoved his waistband down, revealing the initials ‘T. E.’ carved on his hip. Roch let out a low whistle. Some stared at it curiously, others in erroneous fear.

“That is not your initials.” Barsad said sharply.

He smiled. “Op went bad.”

There was a light of recognition in the men’s eyes. “You were in the hospital.”

“Yep.” Blake replied lightly, popping the ‘p’ at the end.

“You kept it, why?”

“A reminder.” Blake shrugged, not sure himself. He could have had skin-grafts done or tattoos. But at the time, in pain and drugged out of his mind, he had needed it, the physical proof of the system’s failures.

“What happened to ‘im?” Roch asked innocently, not fooling anyone.

“The rich get away with murder in this city. He got off, paid off my student loans but that’s it. He’s a brilliant doctor and the city needs him. I only wanted to protect people.” He examined the bananas, noting their yellow uniformity, and picked at the sticker label on the stem. “But it’s too late for that isn’t it?”

“Yes, but not for you.”

Barsad nodded to Mostafa who immediately began to sort through the bags, taking an armful of carrots and putting them in the sink while the apples went in the fruit basket set out conveniently for anyone who was sick of eating takeouts five days in a row.

“You should go visit Bane.” Parziv said kindly. “I think he would appreciate it.”

“You mean you guys would appreciate it if he didn’t know where you were.”

“Details” Roch waved off. “I know you’re mad at him for the clown incident...”

“It wasn’t that funny.” He groused.

“But” the other man continued, plowing over his grievances of being laughed at by a mercenary. “I’m sure the boss would really like it if you paid him a visit.”

“Right” Blake said grimly, marched at gunpoint down into the sewers. “I’m ordering burgers.”

“You do that.”  
  
  
A few days later, Thomas Elliot was found dead in the water, destroying all chances of identifying his killer. The coroner theorized that it was a driving accident; perhaps the famed neurosurgeon had one too many drinks and had driven off the road. Everyone else feigned ignorance when he glared at them and Bane was forced to placate him by buying a year’s worth of art supplies for St. Swithin’s.

But he appreciated it all the same and didn’t complain when they commandeered his TV. Barsad had the remote.

{6}

“You can’t just blow up a city with half a million people in it.”

“Seems simple enough.”

“You just wait.” Blake muttered darkly, painting Talia’s nails in a vivid shade of orange. Talia had grown up in a pit, emerging as an avenging angel, never knowing the simple pleasures of girlhood until she came to Gotham and was struck by a sensory overload of a performing socialite, vowing never again to watch Thelma and Louise. “Batman will ruin your plans and I’ll be there to say ‘I told you so’.”

Blake was introducing it to her in small increments. He convinced her that self-flagellation was unnecessary after getting her hair done and ice cream was never a reason to reenact Fight Club and emasculate everyone. Maybe it was but he was tired of being thrown on the mats, he frankly got enough of that from Bane.

“Then what would you suggest Officer Blake? Perhaps we should have had you break him instead.” Bane said with heavy sarcasm until Talia tore out a hangnail with a triumphant ‘ha!’ as per his instructions.

Running an underground criminal operation was no excuse for bad hygiene. Blake tried to hide the glow of satisfaction, chewing thoughtfully on a slice of cucumber. He replied, “Let him try.”

“Pardon?”

“You said yourself, Gotham is corrupt. It’s slowly suffocating under its own weight. I agree, the city’s a cesspool of suffering and misery and I wouldn’t mind seeing it wiped off the grid. But there are people here who don’t deserve that, people who deserve the chance to get out. So let him try. You leave now and he’ll never be able to. He’ll always be here, waiting for your return because we’re the ones who got away.”

“We?” Talia said archly, curling her toes.

“We’ve got Daggett’s money.” Blake pointed out.  
  
  
“You must tell me how you will marry.” Talia sighed silkily, lounging on an oriental chaise lounge. “It is within my power to grant you such you know.”

“How generous of you.” Blake replied scathingly, possessing the constitution of a lightly boiled lobster.

“This was entirely your fault.” Talia scolded him, watching Bane slather aloe all over his back.

“Mufasa was drowning!”

“Mostafa.” Talia corrected.

“How do you people not know how to swim?” He griped, “Do they not teach you in the assassin school of yours?”

Groaning, Roch raised his head. “Hey, I know how to swim.”

Talia nodded approvingly. “He knows how to swim.”

“We just choose not to.” Barsad felt the need to point out.

Blake felt the amused huff of air at his shoulder.

“First thing tomorrow.” He said slowly, “If I’m still alive, I’m going to teach you guys how to swim.”

“Yes mamá.” Roch catcalled but it lacked its usual bite and Talia looked serene, admiring the toes which she had colored purple. Annoyed, Blake relaxed under Bane’s ministrations, the larger man kneading his shoulders like it was dough. Somehow, he had unknowingly saved Gotham and probably the life of Bruce Wayne who, if he was smart, would have left the city forever. But he wouldn’t.

The people he loved best were safe; the boys at St. Swithin’s moved to better facilities in upstate New York where they would attend school and have chances that he didn’t while he was there. For a man for hire, someone who had been betrayed by the institution and betrayed it in turn, it wasn’t half bad. He fell asleep to waves crashing on the beach and Talia’s soothing melody, knowing that tomorrow, he’d have to teach a dozen men and Talia how to brave the waters.

He looked forward to it.


End file.
